


Where Beginning Ends, End stays

by orphan_account



Category: K-pop, 힐러 | Healer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Assassination, Attempt at Humor, Beer, Best Friends, Blood, Boss/Employee Relationship, Character Death, Color Blindness, Desperation, F/M, Gunshot Wounds, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Late Night Writing, Late at Night, Matter of Life and Death, No Smut, POV First Person, Poisoning, Tumblr Prompt, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28049268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Destiny does have it's strange way of having some fun. But at what cost?A blessing in guise of nightmare, wait! Am I not defining love?Or, You should really pay attention to how your heart feels erratic chasing someone. Before it all has to end(?) End it with a good banger they say, sure, because the end is what stays right? In your heart, burning around your finger or the first and last letter from the one you were to love.I am really rushing my ass off, give this a chance, the story's really better than this. See you or maybe not(?)
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 4





	Where Beginning Ends, End stays

**Author's Note:**

> Let's look over the basics, a little help, if you may;
> 
> ☆Achromatopsia is also known as “complete color blindness” and is the only type that fully lives up to the term “color blind”. It is extremely rare, however, those who have achromatopsia only see the world in shades of grey, black and white.
> 
> ☆The pericardial cavity is the potential space formed between the two layers of serous pericardium around the heart. Normally, it contains a small amount of serous fluid that acts to reduce surface tension and lubricate. Therefore, the cavity facilitates the free movement of the heart.
> 
> I really feel like those zoom classes where the teachers are talking to immobile tiles! So gimme a shoutout if you like it by the end. 
> 
> Song Recommendation: https://youtu.be/pNPDOHRqUE0 (it's English, don't worry and my Kpoppies, hello!) 
> 
> MoodBoard: https://pin.it/7zG5Es0

The cold bites at my skin, frosting every unhindered part in the air's vicinity. I blow into my conjoined palms, meaning to desperately warm them. A slight perturbation in my periphery however has me forgetting about the mind-numbing cold or anything else for that matter; like the altitude at which I had been dangling for the past couple of hours but the effort pays off when I finally see her, clad in a puffy jerkin and some combat pants, dashing to switch on the lights and frantically putting stuff away. It's a blessing she lives in a studio apartment. But is it really? My rapt breathing fogs up the binoculars and I completely miss her squinting through her window pane in the urgency of cleaning them, met with her bulging eyes the moment the magnifying instrument is back on. Despite the absolute surety that my spot on the building adjacent to hers is close to invisible, I can't help the pace at which my heartbeat picks up, a feeling akin to dread settling in my gut at the prospect. 

We have a routine, the both us, I mind my own business which isn't at all anyone's business during the daytime, slinking around the terrace of a lacklustre skyscraper as the sky turns duller and duller in the evening and wait patiently for the stars to begin rousing for the night. The fun however begins when SHE waddles in her tiny apartment, a building and three floors away from me. Neglecting the showy fact that she isn't all that aware of our tandem which believe me, only serves to her best interest. Who in their right mind would anyway want to see their- nevermind. 

I don't know why but my feet always refuse to move from the spot even long after she has turned in for the night, if the darkened space behind the thin curtains are any sign to go by. But as dedicated as I am towards my 'project', I ought to get lost from the shady corner on the vast terrace before anyone comes barreling there. With such work comes huge consequences and I can't say that I'm much fond of thinking and strangling myself over the heinous thoughts. The wind's particularly merciless today, zapping right and left alike. Gathering whatever consists of my little everyday camp, I heave a breath and start pinching around my neck, patting it down and cycling around in the process till the skin becomes too tender to touch. To add the final scoring drama, I smudge the atrociously bright lipgloss between my gloved fingers, splashing them when deemed faint yet attention demanding enough. 

The building keeper gulps audibly when I bend ever so slightly that the good for nothing shirt rides away from my hard-earned and toned chest, the marks littered around the area becoming all the more evident and scandalous in the harsh light of the register booth. I can feel his eyes tracing my hand as it glides over the page, forging a legitly unexisting person's signature. Even though it's considered offensive staring at a person's hand, I brush off the thought, after all he's just not minding mannerisms and social etiquette. I really am in no position to judge that. Raising my head, I challenge his demeanour with an inquistive quirk of my brow, sending him into an awkward coughing fit before sashaying out the glass building. I turn away from the looming brick building on the other side of the road, almost painfully clutching the straps of the bag in my hands, ignoring the lingering instinct of looking up to check if the lights are still out. 

"Good job." The manager affirms as his eyes take in the variedly taken photographs, nodding for an enhanced version of the bland praise. My lips are bracketed, having learnt the lesson of never expressing any form of gratitude quite early in my time here. Surmising it enough for the day, his gaze wanders up back to me and he cracks up a little and honestly the expression's ancestry might root from a grimace, never a smile. "I see, you've kept up the act till now?" I nod with the poker face I've been trained to wear instead of any humanly emotion. My responsive stoicness just does the job and he's back in the boss's shoes, impenetrable looking. "You are excused." He dismisses me in time his secretary raps in a composed manner on the door. I bow a little, twirling around with mechanical grace and then into the cold and lit doorway of the inconspicuous building. The manager's secretary nods affirmatively at me, smirking at the blooming fake hickeys scattered on the expanse on my exposed front. "A week or so, you'll be freed. You can actually find 'the one' to do that," Her voice bounces off the grey walls, giving me enough of a reason to roll my eyes at her. Her answering snicker sees me stalking away. 

"Watching your face is like taking a journey." He serves as a conversation-starter from the opposite side of the table, peeking small sips here and there. I shake my head in definite declination, baffled as to how our- I mean his one sided conversation with me about upcoming shopping centre innaugral, to this. I mean the bipolarity? "Doesn't make sense?." He smugly inquires, goading me to throw a smart comment in regard but the woman beats me to it. "You mean revving a flat tired bike in quicksand? Cos nothing on that face's going anywhere." The smoky eyed look defines the sharpness of her face, bringing out the glint of humor there. "Don't do that. Stay away from my head, woman." His eyes hold no hint of accusation, dueling what comes off his mouth in most treacherous of ways. "I didn't even do anything. It'd be crystal clear to anyone with a brain, where you were taking the conversation," She sasses, eyes now glued to her phone screen, casually scrolling through thousands of worth of bags and accessories. "Did he get it? No, so did it work? No." He muses, body upturned to face the edge of the table where she is sat. "Fair point because he has a brain, that's for sure." They continue bickering for a few minutes, no bite to their snarky remarks but just adequate irk-factor to keep the insults coming. I excuse myself by wandering off to washroom, too grossed out to sit and listen to those lovesicks. 

"So about the inability to voyage," He says long after my return to the stilled table. I figured the woman must've knocked some sense into him and her following grunt only served to prove me right. I hum a non-committal answer, not a bit interested in whatever dialogues he's going to spew. "When you feel any emotion, the face remains same, I don't know how or why you do that. Anyway what I'm saying is don't always be like that, face in a grimace, it might really morph into that expression permanently." I scoff at the nonsense insinuation. "And what if?" I challenge. "Seeing your social and emotional constipation, it really would be hard for you to find someone." There he goes again and telepathy or not, I just know that the usually fiesty woman has her face pulled into one too many shades of pity or worry, mirroring him. I hate this feeling. 

The glow in their strings just pours fuel into the fire. Is it so bad that people have to throw it to my face? "I don't need-" I go to clarify before am cut off by her velvety voice, "Oh, believe me! You do." And that's the end of it because how can you even argue when there's that literal period at the end of the statement and I'm too tired to retort anyway. Chugging down the remnant beer, I fetch my wad of cash, stuffing it into the awaiting receipt pamphlet. An eerie silence falls over the table as we wait for the bell boy to bring back the change but the sensation of two pairs of eyes boring into my skull is an acceptable reason to contemplate foregoing some measly change. "She didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or anything," The one person with semblance of sense speaks up and I nod meekly at him. "What are the odds? Like one in some thousand couples have it written in their destinies and-" My voice abruptly tails off, whisked away by the overwhelming feeling of emotional vulnerability lodging itself in my throat, rendering me unable to talk further. Both of their heads hang down and I'm hit with the realisation that another one of our rare meet-ups have turned into a pity party but I beg to make it differ. 

"And I don't think that I'd be lucky enough to meet my soulmate when they are holding me at gunpoint." I practically see the recollection flashing through both of their orbs, red strings flashing an unmistakably fluorescent shade of red. I smile despite myself when they burst into a fit of giggles, happy to have distracted them so that the topic would be left alone. "It was a damn mistake, okay! Stop laughing, you dimwits. I was this close to blowing my own boss's head off," She screeches, rewarded with our mingling laughter barely after a beat later. "Ouch. Just boss? Skipped the capital S word." She throws a glare at the innocent playing lad, promising a night of couch-exile and whatnot. "You think I could find someone in the office though?" I think out loud and met with quite incredulous expressions but they aren't blame, it was just wishful thinking. "I think it's better if you don't." My concluding nod is kind of a non-verbal agreement to his counter. "But have you ever considered giving me an office so I could hire a soulmate secretary?" Chiming in with another fantasy, I successfully earn groans of exasperation from them. "I think I like you better as the stone at office." "Sure you do, Boss. Sure you do," Comes my reply, throwing a dirty look to the unsuspecting girl who's passing around the returned change of money to me. "You make it sound it dirtier than it is," She adds in, eyes narrowed to slits. "I see the comparative degree there, it means the whole affair had some dirt to begin with."

I learnt quite a few days ago that it doesn't matter the world lies at your feet, in a moment it's existence will turn just as second nature as the rhythm of a breath. The feeling will lose the high that it came with, and so the urge to keep rolling with it. Never would I had anticipated, the nonchalance about the thing would turn into a horrid repulsion. After all, aren't six months of lurking around someone who doesn't actually have a 'life' enough to grow tired of their social quarantine? In my case, yes. 

"Nothing that made me curious, she just put her Thursday socks in the hamper." The answering static distracts me for a moment before I recollect my bearings and continue to telekinetically try to penetrate her bathroom window. "Her Thursday socks, you say?" The constant questioning spilling through my outdated cell calls for divided attention which is a clear violation to my work ethics but seeing how it's close to the D-day, I'm no longer ashamed to admit that I don't truly care. "Yes, the pair of yellow polka dotted socks that she wears to work on Thursdays." On a strange impulse, I tighten the hold on the binoculars and zoom on in with the maximized limit on her bare face and it wouldn't be an understatement to say that the sight of a few unbound tears rolling down from her eyes steal the air from my lungs. "She's crying." It isn't meant to be an immediate report, rather a mere taste of how the words felt on my tongue, to make it seem more real somehow. "Why?" The manager's voice knocks the stolen breath into my windpipe, rather forcefully might I add. "I don't know but apart from that, nothing is out of sort, everything is the same. What changed? Didn't the people around her workplace report anything? She wouldn't breakdown over nothing, right?" The cold has me panting by the time I finish speaking or was it the urgency that dripped from my words? "Nothing unusual you say but today's a Friday," He voices out with a tired lilt before adding, "Don't lose your footing this close to the end." The lights blow out approximately close to their adapted time but there's one thing different thing today, An unpleasant torrent doesn't churn in my gut like this every night. 

I sleep in for quite some time on Monday, the unexplainable tension in my body keeping my body taut as a live wire for rest of the day. I wander from shopping complexes to dim lit suanas, mulling around libraries in between, my daytime business, senses high on alert as they should. The day proceeds without any change in plans and as soon as I am off the daytime duty, my feet take me to the headquarters based off of muscle memory. The manager and his secretary boost me up, sensing my deteriorating ability to go through with the final run-over of the events that'll lead to end of my working semester for the year. "Monday, November the 23rd. Reporting the final staging: The target is currently marking her stilleto straps with a sharpie. 8 O1 report end." Fastening the zip of my leather jacket upto my chin, I brace myself to continue the battle against cold for a few more minutes. The unaccounted act of modification of the shoe straps has put our schedule on a backtrack, infuriating not only one but multiple of our people. Stupid priorities. 

"Yes, sir. She has unlactched the door and is stepping out. Sure, firm steps." I add in after his further inquiry about her gait which forsoothly is sturdier than usual. "Okay. Checklist for the items carried." I steer my eyes around her lithe frame, checking every dip and bulge to clear out the possibility of missing any hidden possession before breathing out, "A handpurse, the party kind, blue sequins with lilac gemstones. Holds her phone, 100 dollars total in bills and coins, two tampons and an unused cylindrical container of lip gloss, Colour unknown." The scribble of his pen is barely audible over the click of door that reverberates in her now closed apartment. "She has exited the apartment. Do I follow the next plan of action now, Sir?" His voice sounds as if in contemplation and I stand by, keeping both of my ears occupied by varying tasks, an empty living space's clock ticking depressingly in one and my senior weighing between courses of action in another. "Alright, continue with the plan. I expect your very best." I strain my entire body to inhale, swallowing on a gradually croaking throat. "Definitely yes, Sir. 8 O9 pm, Mission Claret, Last report. Fin." The terminated bleep of the phone detonates like a thrill in my body, senses rushing into overdrive so as to prepare for the adrenaline that would inevitably kick in any time now. 

First, Eject the sim; shred the phone.

Second, Decimate the binoculars.

Third, Gather the trash and bag it up. 

Fourth, Switch the pair of gloves and feet scrubs with socially negligible accessories of the same nature. 

Fifth, Check for onlookers, if none found, mount the zipline and travel down. Just as I am about to pocket my in-ear(s), a faraway click of door ceases my body. The only feasible source would be the target's apartment but I made sure that she had been out the door before packing up the camouflage camp. Damn girl. She walks in airily, swift in doodling something onto the notepad by the window but the inavailablity of the telescopic vision, I am no lesser blind to it than anyone else. Her rushed pace sparks a sense of doubt in me, mind conflicted about phoning the officials but the jiggling shreds of the device speak an ear-splitting volume at that. Sooner than a blink of eye, she's out the door. And this time, I see for myself that she crosses the sidewalk before gliding down in record speed. 

Sixth, Follow her down to the venue of gathering.   
I don't have to wait more than some seconds after ditching the bag with a substitute agent standing by the end of the zipline to have another familiar pair of hands encasing mine, crossing the traffic signal. More times that I'd like to admit have I found myself shooting glares at abstract objects like traffic signals, to somehow negotiate for the unjust feeling of not being able to discern what it really looks like, not the form but the strokes which have painted them, the bust of colours morphing it's identity. Monochrome has it's charm, sure but not when it's the only option that you are so luckily blessed with. Over all of the years I've been alive, there was only one time when I saw color for what it is, rest of it is painted in an infinite spectrum of greys, whites and blacks. It had been nothing short of magic for my infantile brain, like seeing a whole new galaxy in a snapping second, marvelous and imprinting; The red string around my finger had glowed that day, bamboozling by nature but it took years of regret and dismay for me to realize that it indeed was mystic, I was one of the few blessed people whose soulmates had been born. 

We bifurcate at the crossing, my feet pattering away from him and towards the large banquet hall where the marital unison of the target's friend would be taking place over the span of next hour or so which leads me to the last part of the mission,   
Seventh, Stand guard by the back alley and wait for her to get the invite of death, a forged call which would tell her about her only parent's unfortunate road mishap. The agents inside in the hall, the waiters, some managers with the astounding addition of the ceremonial priest report us of every arrival, departure and the smallest of details about what's going on inside. The air is serene today, calming even as if some twittering bird told of what is to occur today. I hope not because ending people who mistakenly catch up with the forbidden have made me do more sins than what is understandable. Like now. 

To avoid any fallacies in the procedure, any sort of traceable gadgets were asked to be kept away for the time being, the incidents of going heads on messy encounters with intelligence officials were slowly going uphill and we ought to stall it, if going to old ways it is, then be it. That is how I find myself in the current situation, uninformed and on edge from the numerous possibilities this could go down but the fact that a hoard of people are there to finish after me if I fail feels dreadful to me. My ears pick up the sound of footsteps, a pair and for a second my mind jumps into top-gear speed, already thinking about executing two assassinations, a rookie mistake, jumping to conclusionsI mean, because my attacking stance startles the young couple of drunkards, their hiccups enough to highlight their obvious plastic memory about this and I worry just a little less about being spotted. It takes bearing corny pickup lines and gassy packets of giggles before they get going, allowing me to sink deeper in the dark, adjusting the holster tied to my back. 

Some more minutes into the wait, a faint throbbing makes home beneath my brow bone, a crackling sensation as if someone's trying to hole in a live wire inside my head. I pinch my eyebrows together, willing the headache to go away but to no avail, it goes stronger still. Hunching over my knees, I slide down the dark mask from my face, gulping huge bouts of air as I feel a puddle of vomit elevating through my throat. It takes some uneventful minutes before the intense amalgam of bodily dysfunctions and the mask comes back on but so do the pressed bundle of nerves which I prefer shut down right now. Time rolls as a snowball, peaking my anxiety slowly and so a loud groan seems to be the expected response when my watch displays that it only have been 23 minutes since my arrival here. 

Finally the agent placed in the doorkeeping department pages me which could only mean one thing, Show time. Slinking every protective sheath around my body, I flex the body-fitted so as to avoid any wardrobe obstructions, checking one last time the tightly upheld weapon in my holster. There's not much that I can do anyway, everything depends on how desperately she needs to get to her 'death bed ridden' parents. Rest, I had enough of time to figure that. The universe is merciful occasionally or something along it's line because her footsteps soon make themselves known, louder on the right step, faint on the left; Asymmetrical limbs, one would never know. From the edge of the alley wall, I scan her from head to toe, her makeup and low neck halter dress are of the glimmery kind, an intricate flashboard for, Single with an alive Cupid. Apart from the perspiration gathered over her neckline and the sidelines of face, her face and pace are void of the kind of any climacteric emotions, surprising? Yes, for heck. The small knee length frail of her dress flow behind as she passes me by and I put my foot step foreward to four of her steps. According my boss's secretary and fated wife, a place near a wedding banquet might not go as unsuspecting as we need so here I am, following her to the next alley which opens at 150 meters from the earlier. 

With a stealthily rapid pace, I grapple her from her behind, slotting myself at a distance away from her as to have no contact and even lesser chances of my trace down. I buckle out the singly loaded flehette gun from the belt with the hand which isn't occupied by holding the mouth and blow it down into the centre of her back, posterior to her pericardial cavity, waiting for the inevitable death trashing start but it never comes, no sound of protest whatsoever. The pager in my pocket bleeps a couple of time, signalling the area has to be emptied in a few minutes which is the optimal time for the thin coat of batrachotoxin to work wonders, paralyzing the entirety of her nerves, rendering her immobile and as dead as; well, death. I pocket the gun haphazardly and quell down the nausea that engulfs me just like always except it's even suffocating this time. The people will clean up after me, all that is left is to move her to someplace darker till she'd lose all of the life flowing in her veins. Her body is flaccid, unresponsive and then it strikes me, more like squishes over my hand, blood, coming out her mouth in a steady flowing string. I retract my hand with disgust marred over my features, never has anyone spouted blood on my hand and I really wished she wouldn’t be the first one either. 

Because there it was, her blood, on my hands, adorning the gloves like liquid mercury; embossed naturally. Except it's not. Downright breathtaking would be one way to put it. 

It's red. Scarlet, pearly red, dark and flamboyant, flowy, alive. No, dying! 

I fall back as if in a freefall, featherweight and uncaring. The proximity strengthens along with the albeit raggedly breathing proof that the only person who could bless me with the beauty of chromatic vision is dying in my arms. I never believed in the existence of those endless moments when time stops just so you could sport a consolation smile before it scoffs in your face and makes death seem the only way to stop feeling, agony, desperation, blood curdling anger and nausea, not in that particular order;

But for the one minute she raises her head, looking like it takes all the effort in the world, the blood dripping in from her face which challenges the pallid colour of her dress, time stops. Not the kind of where the wind flows but the land stops, where anything but you halts; None of it happens because I know the world breathes just as freely as anyday today, it doesn't have the one person who you could've owed every one of it, dying in your arms; The world mustn't be feeling the decaying heart of the one person it's heart beats for, the world is just fine, with out without her and me, the one who took away it's beat, an arrhythmic symphony, a voiceless melody. The world has always known colour, I don't see it, I know it and I would if only they wouldn't hold me captive; Her eyes, the hazy charcoal in her orbs brims with mist, of pain, of death, of fate. It's over as soon it begins, the upturned bow of her red streaked lips morphing unlike humanly, falling face first over my heart, painting it with her death, taking away all of the hue it gave me. Seeing the life slowy tipping off from her body, I reached to hold something, anything to not let her go but found a paper-thin declaration of my death instead. Death I realize isn't escaping breath or shutting eyes, it's the soul wrenching agony that simmers from your toes to the last strand of hair, a feeling here to stay.

There's no need to be romanticizing what happened, Death, I learned that day, is not pretty.  
If the burned black around my ring finger is any sign to go by, love, you should know only needs a moment to have you thundering down the high of life to the damned pit of lively death. Even if the love didn't bloom before time ended, I know, in my half dead heart that the one stopped beating that day was the only one which could/can revive mine. It all comes down to this pathetic joke, of life, sent me soaring down in the depths of ocean with no oxygen while mine ran out in those 10 minutes which the poison spared us. 

"Touch me. See life first, please." Funny she wrote that. I wonder if the letters are written in red, the color of our fate. 

**Author's Note:**

> Every one of the little hearts would turn out a reason for me to smile, would you wish a smile upon me?
> 
> Feel free to point out mistakes. I'll try and take it in the name of sporting spirit!
> 
> P.S. I love you, no matter anything in the world.


End file.
